Saving Cambodia's Ancient Silk Legacy

Japanese textile expert Kikuo Morimoto almost single-handedly revived the art of handwoven silks in wartorn Cambodia.

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Kikuo Morimoto with silk fabrics created in workshops in Siem Reap, Cambodia

Photograph by Xavier Lecoultre, Rolex

PUBLISHED December 19, 2016

Cambodia’s ancient handwoven silk industry, once among the world’s finest, was fading into oblivion before Japanese textiles expert Kikuo Morimoto came along.

The Rebirth of a Forgotten Cambodian Art

In a country racked by poverty and the lingering ravages of civil war, few Cambodians were involved in silk production, and the art of silk weaving was fading.

Commissioned by UNESCO to survey the status of traditional Cambodian silk making in 1994, Morimoto came upon a rural village, where he saw elderly women selling silk weavings to middlemen for nearly nothing. By purchasing their products for higher prices, Morimoto set about restoring and re-creating traditional silk production—and a way of life.

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Silk threads are individually dyed, an elaborate process that can take months.

Photograph by Xavier Lecoultre, Rolex

It was an experience that would indelibly change the Japanese textile expert’s life, as well as those of scores of Cambodians.

"In the beginning, it was like a wasteland,” he says. “But I planted trees, built a house, dug a well, and made a road and a farm—everything. People thought I was crazy. I guess most people would worry about not knowing how to build a community. To me, it seemed like a reality, something possible to realize."

Using funds from his Rolex Award for Enterprise, Morimoto set up workshops for silk production, enabling older artisans steeped in traditional production to pass their dyeing and weaving techniques to younger generations. "This is probably the only place left in the world where silk weaving is completely carried out by hand with traditional looms and natural dyes, and they're made from plants and trees we planted ourselves,'' says Morimoto, 68.

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Women spin silk thread to make it smooth before weaving.

Photograph by Xavier Lecoultre. Rolex

The richly colored fabrics produced by his workshops have since attracted interest worldwide. "We actually do things in the same way as hundreds of years ago,'' he says. "The big difference of the textiles we make here from the silk that is in every common market is the texture, smoothness, and quality. When you touch our textiles, you can feel it."

IKTT, also called Wisdom of the Forest, includes a settlement of 50 homes, 150 residents, and a school for 50 children.

“Rolex was the push-up that made it possible for me to expand the village, make it almost entirely self-sufficient, and make silk weavings that people fly in from overseas to buy,’’ Morimoto says.